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News feed
Bite-sized news updates on China’s tech world
Thursday, April 21
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China’s Gotion High-Tech said on Wednesday that it will supply an estimated total of 126,000 electric vehicle (EV) battery packs to Geely’s light commercial electric vehicles within three years, deepening the ties between the two companies first forged in 2019. The Volkswagen-backed battery maker also reached deals with other automakers last year, including Great Wall Motor and Leapmotor. Total light-vehicle sales in China, including lightweight trucks and buses, slightly decreased 4.2% annually to 3.12 million units last year, according to official figures. [Gotion statement, in Chinese]
- Social media and e-commerce platform Xiaohongshu is reportedly slashing around 20% of its workforce, Chinese media outlet Sina reported on Thursday, citing employees of the company. The layoff will affect staff, mainly fresh graduates and recently joined employees, across all business departments in both Beijing and Shanghai, the two major cities where the company operates from. The Instagram-like firm joins a lengthy list of tech firms that have started to trim their headcounts since last year. In October 2021, Xiaohongshu, also known as Little Red Book, was reportedly preparing for a Hong Kong IPO after suspending its US IPO plan in July due to Beijing’s tightened reviews on overseas listings. [Sina Tech, in Chinese]
- Cloud CAD, a Chinese online collaborative computer-aided design (CAD) platform has received more than RMB 10 million ($1.55 million) in funding from angel investors over the past six months, as revealed by 36Kr on Wednesday. Founded in January 2020, the company focuses on cloud-based CAD design, which is widely used in industrial modeling. Liu Xin, founder and CEO of Cloud CAD, told 36Kr that it now has more than 100,000 users, a tenfold increase over the past six months. The funding will reportedly be used on product research and development, project operations, and expanding the influence and scope of Cloud CAD. [36Kr, in Chinese]
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The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) added seventeen US-listed Chinese companies to its provisional delisting list, identified under the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act in the US. Some of China’s major tech-related firms are included, such as coffee chain Luckin, electric vehicle maker Li Auto, Q&A platform Zhihu, and online housing firm KE Holdings. The US regulator has given these companies 15 business days to submit evidence to oppose the commission’s charge, with a deadline of May 12. [SEC announcement]
- Global smartphones fell 11% in the first quarter compared to the same period last year, according to data from market analysts firm Canalys released on Tuesday. The figures show that the top two global brands Samsung and Apple expanded their market share from 22% to 24% and 15% to 18%, respectively. Chinese smartphone makers Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo saw their global market shares shrink, with shipments by the three Chinese brands accounting for 31% of the global total compared to 35% for the same period in 2021. Canalys’ analysis notes that the overall decrease is due to “unfavorable economic conditions and sluggish seasonal demand.” [Canalys]
- On Thursday, social media and e-commerce platform Xiaohongshu responded to reports of staff layoffs at the company, stating that they were part of a normal human resources optimization during its performance review process. A representative from the Instagram-like app told TechNode that the adjustment will impact “less than 10% of its workforce”, rather than the 20% layoff that was previously reported. Moreover, the layoff will only affect those who failed to pass Xiaohongshu’s probation period, totaling around 200 employees, or a little over 9% of the company’s workforce, according to a count by local media outlet Yicai. [Yicai news, in Chinese]
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